Did I mention? My littlest girl turned one while we were away, and because she is just that special, she was feted in two countries. Here's a shot from her USA party, in which she got groovy with her cake. Yum!

















And here she is rockin' it Canadian style:

When you spend a week essentially driving around North America (OK, the eastern part), stopping to visit loved ones in between diaper changes, roadside/truck stop potty trips and backseat Goldfish consumption, there is nothing, nothing you want more than to just. get. home. already. Nineteen hours of driving each way, even when spread out over two days, just isn't ideal.

So, of all the images I will remember from our trip to Canadaland, with stopovers in West Virginia, it's not this one from the Toronto Zoo (which sums up how MJ felt most afternoons around 4 p.m.) that I will recall the most:

Nor is it this one (which sums up how LL Cool Baby got back at MJ for waking her up every time she fell asleep in the car: with a swift kick in the head) ...

 

It's the one I don't have a photograph of. It's MJ, at a Subway in Morgantown, W.Va., miles from home but on the back end of the trip and feeling giddy with freedom from the car, running laps around the middle of the restaurant like a Jamaican track athlete and chanting some happy-happy-joy-joy song over and over again. I thought briefly of making her stop, the way most responsible parents might for fear it would interrupt someone else's meal. But what I really thought was, "Sing it, sister."

Home? Is freakin' awesome.

Now, ymou may have heard that I'm not always the most discerning television viewer. I watch some of the really great shows, but I also watch some pretty crappy, 7th-Heaven-y stuff about pregnant teenagers who are members of their high school bands. (Seriously. "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" has to be the worst show on TV, and I swore I would erase it from my DVR recordings as soon as she told her parents that she was pregnant ... and yet ... I have not. I kind of hate myself for it.)

I will seriously watch almost anything.

But I've never really given in to "American Idol," not the way so many others have. We watched the year of Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard and, afterward, the husband told me I could never watch it again. And do you want to know why?* Here's why: I watched the last 10 minutes of "Canadian Idol" at the in-laws (that's right, I said CanadianIdol) and found myself upset that a 17-year-old with floppy black hair named Mookie got kicked off the show. "How," I kept repeating, over and over again, "do you kick a guy named Mookie off?" Then I became concerned, briefly -- but enough to spend a few minutes thinking about it -- that he had smashed his guitar on stage after his farewell song, and what a silly thing that was to do when you weren't even the runner-up on Idol. I mean, are you really guaranteed enough post-Idol money to buy yourself a new one if you finish below four or five other people? Television is like crack for my free time; I swear I can get obsessed with any show if you give me a chance.

It's quite sad, really. So I guess it's good we don't get CTV down in the south.

(*OK, his reason for why I couldn't watch it again WAS, in fact, Clay Aiken.)

How much do I love Neil Patrick Harris? I was -- I mean, MJ was -- watching "Sesame Street" yesterday morning, and NPH appears as a ... wait for it ... Fairy Shoeperson. He's the only celebrity guest you'll ever see on "Sesame Street" who can turn in a performance worthy of Broadway. He sings. He dances. He wears a glittery suit with wings. I can't embed the video, but if you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out here. This clip is not as good as the whole sketch on the show, in which he shows off some of the funny that makes him so great on "How I Met Your Mother," but you get the idea.

... and after you check that out, watch this video from him on Conan, in which he talks about some of the choice lines the writers gave him.

AND because you know how much I love "HIMYM," watch the video below of NPH and Jason Segal performing "The Confrontation" from Les Miserables, which I stumbled across while searching for the Sesame one. So funny. I laugh louder each time I see it.

When I came home from Target last night, MJ was watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I don't know why. Some questions just aren't worth asking. But she was on a Seuss kick, because when we trotted off for bedtime stories, she asked for "the one with the big turtle. The big green turtle. That one."

Yertle the Turtle is so underrated in the Seussicon. It's so much fun to read, and it has such a great message, with the king building a high tower for himself on the backs of all his subjects, only to be knocked off by a burp.

And Yertle the Turtle, the king of the trees,
The king of the air and the birds and the bees,
The king of a house and a cow and a mule ...
Well, that was the end of the Turtle King's rule!
For Yertle, the King of all Sala-ma-Sond,
Fell off his high throne and fell Plunk! in the pond!

And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he,
Is King of the Mud. That is all he can see.
And the turtles, of course ... all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.

In fact, as I was reading it to MJ, I couldn't help but think that someone, anyone, should have read it to a certain former one-term senator/third-wheel presidential candidate from my state of residence around late 2005/early 2006 or so ... In fact, don't you think everyone who decides to run for office should have to read it? There should be a required candidate book club, and Yertle the Turtle should be first on the list.

... or, "What Happens When a Little Girl Mixes Her Toys," aka, "Why I Love My Toddler: Reason #3,675," a photo essay in four parts:

Despite his rusty exterior, Mater likes to sleep in a fluffy canopy bed in a pink room. He keeps his potty chair nearby, though, for emergencies.  













Even cars get tired sometimes, as these minis show. Or, as MJ calls them, "baby cars." And where do baby cars belong? In cribs, of course.

 

Grilling in the living room is not advised, but at least Ramone is keeping a safe distance from the BBQ here.

After a nice long nap, it's good to get outside to the playground. Maybe take a trip down the slides.

For the most part, giving MJ a little bribe for going on the potty has worked wonders: She's really responded to getting a reward and didn't complain when we cut out "special surprises" for peeing once she had that task down.

Only one problem. She's turned into a regular consumer. If she sees something she wants, she heads into bargaining mode. It's a little like living on a used car lot. "What's it going to take to get me into that ice cream cone today, Mom?"

• "Mommy, can I have that Charlie and Lola book?"
• "No dear."
• "If I pee? Can I have it if I pee?"

Or ...

• "Mommy, I need a TV."
• "You need a what?"
• "MJ needs a TV. For my dollhouse. For peeing?"

But my favorite request by far was this one, from the other night: We were reading a book at bedtime, and one of the illustrations was a nighttime sky with little stars twinkling in it.

"Mommy," she said, "could we get a star? For going on the potty."

"A star? You mean like a sticker?" I asked.

"No," she said, pointing to the ceiling of her room, "like a real star from up in the sky. MJ wants one of those. For peeing."

It reminded me of that scene from It's a Wonderful Life, the "George Lassos the Moon" bit. At least she knows how to dream big.

     

Randy took one for the team Sunday morning and got up with MJ when she woke at 5 a.m. ... just before MJ prematurely woke up Little L, who has enough trouble getting to sleep with her arm in a splint. (She had refused to go to bed until midnight. Refused, I tell you.) He slogged it out as long as he could, bless his heart, letting me sleep in. And then he tagged me in for duty at 8:30 a.m., dumping Little L on my lap and MJ at my side and crawling back under the covers like a schoolboy with a tummy ache.

"I want to cry," he said as he rolled away from us, beaten down by his own children. We both laughed, but it was only half-hearted, because crying -- if not for the fact that we're supposed to be the grown-ups around here -- is entirely appropriate. I would have gotten him a box of Kleenex, in fact, and shared it with him, given the looniness that has ensued in this house of late. Instead, I got up, put the baby back in her crib for a nap, the toddler back in her bed, and went downstairs to clean up the explosive nightmare of toys and crumbs that our family room had become.

The vacuum cleaner definitely didn't sound right as I pushed it around the room, but because I'm an idiot, I didn't think to check out the reason. And then came Randy down the stairs, bleary-eyed, still in his underwear, clearly not done catching up on his sleep but on a mission nonetheless. I stopped vacuuming and looked at him, amused. He walked over to the vacuum cleaner -- aka, "The Boss" -- flipped the switch from "hose attachment" to "floor" and turned to go back upstairs.

"Oh," I said, "uh, thanks."

That's me on an almost full night's sleep, people. If I'd been the one who got up at 5 a.m., I would probably have been using MJ's toy vacuum without realizing it.

Earlier this week, before my sweet baby crawled in front of the toddler train that is our MJ and wound up with her left arm in a splint, I was packing for a week at a cottage in Canada with the Bunker-in-Laws, and the 16-hour drive time associated with the visit. We haven't done a BBQ in a while, but this had seemed like a good time to ask this question:

How do you survive long car drives (or travel in general) with your little ones?

I'm keeping the following suggestions for the next time we attempt this trip. (And, in case you're wondering, MJ went up to LL Cool Baby the day after and said, unprompted, "I didn't mean to hurt you, Baby. Are you feeling better?" Then, while hanging out at the GrammyBunker so LL could get the TLC she needed from moi, she called and asked, "Is Baby OK?" Yes, she is. She's a little frustrated, but in another week, she and her arm sprain should be back to normal. Sigh. It's been a long, hard week.)

Some travel tips:

Laura: Get a DVD player. We drove 13 hours once without one, and by the end of the trip we wanted to kill each other. The next trip, we bought one of those portable ones from Best Buy or Target, and although by the end of that trip, we wanted to kill Elmo, at least we could laugh about it.

Also, instead of giving them meals, I believe nothing beats boredom better than snacking (sadly). So I got like a zillion of small tupperwares (like the take and toss ones) and filled them with stuff like fruit cut into small pieces, Cheerios, Goldfish crackers ... pretty much anything you can think of.

Also, I had a bin full of toys on the floor I could reach into and toss into the back. Some brand new, some old favs. The Doodle Pads from Target worked really well, and books. Then again, last trip we took it was just me and Lucas, and he screamed for 2 hours before collapsing from exhaustion.

But try the dvd player and some ear plugs. Maybe you'll get lucky. :)

Barb: {Ironically, Barb had just returned from a 13-hour drive that should have taken nine. Let me see if I can summarize her findings: 1) Repeated viewings of The Little Mermaid will drive you mad; 2) Even if you take five other videos with you, your children will only watch one, over and over, for the duration of the drive. This, for me, would be nothing different from my everyday life, in which Carsdominates every minute of our days. Additionally, by some odd stroke of Netflix ordering, this week we got both Drillbit Taylor and The Darjeeling Limited in our mailbox. Tomorrow I suspect we'll get an invitation from the Wilson's for Owen's birthday party.}

Becky: Fast-food drive-thrus! I would have said a mini-DVD player, as I think it's essential, too, but when movies fail to entertain or calm the tears of my daughter during a long ride, french fries always do the trick. On a recent trip to Maine, my daughter woke up screaming, "I don't want to go to Maine!" I didn't blame her, she'd been sleeping in her car seat, head flopped slightly forward, for a couple hours. So her body probably ached, and we were on some highway in Massachusetts, three hours from our destination--it seems we're always three hours from getting where we need to be--and she just screamed and screamed. I feared, this was it. We couldn't go any further. My vacation plans were useless. A week with just the two of us? What was I thinking?

Then, a Wendy's billboard. I cruised off the exit, Amanda still crying in back, and pulled into the parking lot. She wouldn't get out of the car, she wouldn't let me near her. She was so mad.

Ok, ok, I thought. French fries. She learned that word after mama and dada, thought anything we drove thru meant french fries. At an ATM, she'd say from her car seat, "French fries?" The same was true for tiny paper bags; those mean french fries too. So at Target pharmacies, she'd ask from the shopping cart, "French fries?"

Over the screams, I told the Wendy's person I wanted a kids meal and Combo #1. I needed food too to get us through this crying fit, and french fries do work wonders.

She still cried as I paid, grabbed the order, pulled into a parking spot. Then, I was able to unbuckle her, and I quietly ate my french fries. A minute or two later, as the crying wound its way out of her system, she said, "French fries?"